00:00
I really was a shell
of the person I am now.
00:03
My name's Nicole and this is my story.
00:05
So, at about four years old
00:08
my mum left my dad with
me and my little brother.
00:12
It was just really a time
00:13
of a lot of trauma in my life.
00:15
We were in two fires
00:20
and then my nextdoor
neighbour got stabbed.
00:22
I would have flashbacks to the fire
00:24
where I would be in total
darkness and so frightened,
00:28
and I just remember
feeling really helpless
00:30
at a really young age.
00:31
And, as a family, it did really break us.
00:38
trauma wasn't really something
00:39
that young girls were known to experience;
00:43
it was people much older than me.
00:48
I just wasn't really getting
the help that I needed.
00:51
And I made friends with a
girl who was a Christian.
00:57
She encouraged me to come to
00:59
the Scripture Union club
that our school ran,
01:04
then I heard the gospel
for the first time.
01:06
I heard the good news.
01:09
I heard about a God who was
loving and who loved me,
01:13
and who made me, and who
had a plan for my life,
01:15
and a purpose for it.
01:17
I wanted to know more about that God
01:19
and I prayed, I was like,
01:21
"If you're real, Lord, I
really want to know you
01:23
"and I want to follow you,
01:25
"and I want to accept you as my Saviour."
01:28
And I just remember
this overwhelming peace
01:32
just feeling like, actually,
01:36
God was just present with me there,
01:38
and I don't think that
feeling's ever left me.
01:41
I decided that, actually,
I was ready to be baptised.
01:45
I feel like, at that point,
01:48
I would say I was healed from
01:51
the trauma that no doctor, no counsellor,
01:54
no psychologist had been able to heal.
01:57
My life wasn't bound by trauma anymore,
02:00
my life wasn't bound by the past either,
02:04
and I really had a new life.
02:06
I am extremely passionate about politics.
02:09
I felt like a lot of the politicians
02:11
weren't really reflective of me
02:15
and didn't represent
my experience in life.
02:19
And, as a young female Christian,
02:21
I'd like to try and
02:23
just be a voice in politics.
02:28
Sometimes I feel like I
don't speak very eloquently,
02:32
or I get my words mumbled up,
02:35
but I don't want that to stop me
02:36
because I know that God's
at work through your words
02:41
and that, actually, He wants you to share
02:44
what He's done in your life.